Title: Phthonos (envious jealousy) in Greek Philosophy and Mythology
Lecturer: Luc Brisson (Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France)
Chairperson: ZHANG Lili (Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University)
Date: 3 pm, November 2nd, 2018 (Friday)
Venue: Room 3102, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
By criticizing envious jealousy (phthonos), Plato carries out a complete reversal of traditional values in ancient Greece, where the society of the gods is racked by envious jealousy, as is the society of human beings. Considered as a natural, innate feeling, envious jealousy is the motivation of comedy or of tragedy, according to whether it is ridiculous or execrable. In everyday life, as reflected by comedy and tragedy, envious jealousy is the motive force of history in its darkest aspects: wars between States, civil wars, murders, violence, thefts and conflicts of every kind.
By denouncing envious jealousy, Plato kills mythology, to replace it by theology understood as a rational discourse on the divine. He eliminates comedy, and above all tragedy, in favor of philosophy, in which knowledge replaces an ignorance that gives rise to ridicule, and love is oriented exclusively toward knowledge. He rejects a history whose motive force is envious jealousy, a history in which the dramatic destiny of mankind is explained by the gods’ envious jealousy, a history in which foreign and civil wars, murders, all kinds of conflicts, and thefts are explained by the envious jealousy human beings have for one another; it even accounts for the existence of the universe, and its goodness and beauty. For Plato, to reject envious jealousy is to express his will to establish new relationships between the gods − including universe - and human beings on the one hand, and between human beings on the other, whether individuals or groups. In this context, competition (agón), which played such an important role in the culture of ancient Greece, is evacuated, except, perhaps, from the field of virtue.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
Luc Brisson is director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France. He is also one of the Co-President of International Plato Society, which was established by him and others in 1986. As one of the most distinguished researchers of Plato’s philosophy, professor Brisson was elected to the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada in 1998.